And, Susan IS irredeemable.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Nocturnal Animals
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 06:03 PM)
And, Susan IS irredeemable.
I just came to the conclusion you and FartyKat are made for each other. I'd like to see some reasoning why you shouldn't go on a date together. You can dress sexy - just keep your wedding rings on and everything will be OK. -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 06:10 PM)
Exactly the kind of response I expected.
Don't address her dressing up and taking the ring off.
Don't address the conversation that shows Edward found out she had been pregnant and had the abortion at the same time.
Just be an internet tough guy and anonymously talk smack to a person who disagrees with your view and can actually give reasons why he disagrees that you can't successfully refute. Stick to name calling, cause your debating/reasoning skills are weak. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 07:15 PM)
Exactly the kind of response I expected.
Was it really? No doubt because of this comment of yours?
And, Susan IS irredeemable.
Of course you can say that because you're so perfect yourself, right?
Life has taught me there's little benefit to be gained from conversations with complacent judgmental fools.
In any case, your obsession with the timing of Edward learning various pieces of information has minimal interest for me, since it has little relevance to the story. It's just an excuse for an extra helping of misogyny on your part towards a female character. Why do you desire so strongly to label this person as irredeemable, O Perfect One? -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 07:29 PM)
Yes, it's horribly judgmental that I said a fictional character in a movie is irredeemable. What kind terrible person would say that?
It's much better to make judgments about REAL people like you have in here because that person disagreed with you about whether or not a fictional character in a movie is irredeemable
The way she was portrayed throughout the movie, the things she did to Edward, and in the end (20 years later, BTW) where this married woman dresses up sexy and takes off her ring to go on a date with her ex makes her CHARACTER irredeemable. That's my opinion. I see no proof otherwise as the character is portrayed in the movie.
And the belief that the moment when Edward finds out all those things is mostly irrelevant to the story is, well, ridiculous honestly. Almost as if you didn't watch the movie at all.
And finally, the idea that I find her character to be a horrible FICTIONAL person makes me a misogynist is stupid. I love women. I love strong women in real life and in stories (novels and movies). I love women who have strong moral character and who have heart. She is not one of those kind of characters. I find her to be horrible because her character was written that way, not because she is a woman. Throw the sexist card all you want, it doesn't fly in this case at all. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 13, 2017 04:31 PM)
Susan is a pretty unlikeable character. I don't like her because she sold out her husband for a "success" after she committed to a marriage with Edward. I have little sympathy for her given the life she built around herself after essentially becoming her mother, and betraying her own path after all of that character development as a freethinking Art History grad student lover of the gays.
Her life is as vapid as the art and people that surround her.
And maybe this is the point. We're not really supposed to like her, or even Edward. No one comes out a winner, and both are shown to be ugly and weak (as all people are.)
But why make her have a secret abortion too? What's the need? And if Ford really wanted to make her picture-perfect life seem so empty and devoid of meaning, he shouldn't have staged her house with such sumptuous and luxurious commodities. He restricted himself by not putting any of his designs among the costumes (as he proudly states in an interview), but really, he missed the mark where it mattered most and aimed for somewhere cheap and crude and convenient instead.
The scene with the iPhone breaking and her assistant's flippant response was not enough. Ford should have made her house cold and sterile. But he just couldn't help himself -
Kompressor_Fan — 9 years ago(January 12, 2017 10:22 AM)
Save you're breath.you're talking to an idiot. If DHFilmfan can't understand how this is a betrayal in the context of a marriage, then he is a lost cause.
My guess is that he really does "get it," but is just loving all of the attention he is getting by trying to play dumb. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 13, 2017 04:01 PM)
I wasn't talking about the characters in the film. I was talking about why Tom Ford just
had
to add the abortion plot device while at the same time trumpeting gay rights.
Think of it this way: imagine a feminist filmmaker depicting a "strong female lead" going on some long soliloquy about the gender pay gap (because, as we know, contemporary feminism is as capitalist as they come) while using a gay hairdresser "best friend" as comic relief.
Again, it's not about the characters or the narrative. It's noticing the political blind spots and perhaps even hypocrisies of the author.
This is not to say that all films should be PC or that some mainstream gay rights advocate like Ford should also espouse all other causes. It's just to observe that when people think they're being radical or progressive in their narrow agendas, they tellingly overlook the more reactionary tendencies they also have.
Why is this hard to understand?
Why do people think I'm talking about the film's diegesis when I'm doing meta-analysis? Why do people think that I don't like gay people, or that a secret abortion wouldn't hurt a man who wanted a family?
The point is WHY Ford had to choose
this
route and not any otheror even not at allespecially when he devotes so much time to disparaging conservative backwoods hillbillies for their archaic views on gays. To me, it's just crude and lazy, but pretty much on par with how mainstream gay men orient their "politics." -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 11:25 AM)
Who said this? You.
First there was this:
'then added some story element not found in the novel about her character
having an abortion as some justifiable reason for her ex-husband's revenge tale
?
BTW, if you can't see the abortion's influence in the novel, I don't really know what to tell you.
And there was also this:
'What exactly was the terrible thing she did? Was exercising her right to have an abortion wrong becauseshe had an abortion? ' -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 11:33 AM)
which was in response to this:
"Does supporting women's rights mean that we can't criticize women who use those rights to do terrible things?"
But this doesn't translate to me thinking that Edward avenged himself against Susan solely on the basis of her secret abortion. Edward fantastically (i.e., via fantasy) 'avenged' himself for multiple things.
That comment was in response to someone else thinking that her abortion was done with the purpose of doing a terrible thing to Edward. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 11:45 AM)
Was the abortion in the novel Tony and Susan? I never read it, so I don't know; but according to what I read about the novel and the film, it wasn't. So I was operating from that understanding.
Am I a retarded inbred moron for not having read the novel and having gone on such shoddy information? Jesus Christ. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 11:43 AM)
But why is this so important for you? In the grand scheme of things, who cares what mainstream gay directors do? Why are you going so far as to say that I'm an idiot and incorrigible simply because I observed that Tom Ford added some plot device about abortion to show how Susan hurt Edward alongside his championing of gay rightsto the point of championing abortion as a worthy, purposeful plot device to defend fictional cuckolded men against their fictional devious wives?
Why must everything be such an argument on here, or devolve into insults? We like films and we take different things from them and make observations and debate and discuss and share ideas. Why are people so nasty and combative on here? -
jimmer69 — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 11:49 AM)
Well, I said I thought the idea was ridiculous, not that you were an idiot or incorrigible.
Smart people can and do say ridiculous things.
I also don't know why it's important for you to continue to point out that Ford is a gay director, but whatever. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 12:08 PM)
If my wife, whom I loved dearly, did not love me, secretly aborted my child, and abandoned me for a "safe" life and family, and perhaps most of all, betrayed
herself
as the woman whom I love and believe in, I would be far more enraged and think even worse thoughts than Edward.
My fantasies against her, melding with my regrets at my own failings, and the pain of negotiating the affront to my masculinity, would perhaps manifest in far worse ways than Edward's sublimation of his experience through his novel.
So, yes, I get it. On a human level, I understand. I watch films. I understand lots about people, or at least I try to.
But all I observed was that from an authorial (or directorial/scriptwriting) perspectivethat is, one removed from the narrative of the filmwas that bit about the abortion even necessary? Perhaps it helps the story, but really, could it have been handled better, perhaps by using another plot device? An example that comes to mind is Mulholland Drive:
in the final scenes, when we see the protagonist's flashbacks that show her growing rage and disintegration, there are mere hints through dinner table conversation that Betty is condescended to by her former lover, which is the only reason she managed to get her bit role in the film, and that another lover has taken her place (indicated through a kiss in passing.) It's the discomfort and humiliation she experiences at the dinner table that resonates with us as the audience, and gives explanation to her later decision to have her former lover killed.
But with this film, I just observed that it seemed so out of place (i.e., this soliloquy on gay rights), and then for the screenwriter to also add some bit about abortion as some crude and obvious plot devicea convenient device for us, the audience, to think, oh yeah, well, she definitely sucks. Isn't it a tiny bit ironic that Ford would be so progressive in the sense of having liberal audiences pat themselves on the back for their views on the gays (against the backwards Southern conservatives), and then use ABORTION as a plot device for that SAME audience to revile Susan?
We can think of the obverse of this situation, in the film Elizabeth.
There a strong independent woman becomes a monarch after being kept away in a tower by her conspiring half-sister for much of her youth. And she encounters a suitor, played by Vincent Cassel, who is brash, lude, and gasp wears women's clothing at a baccanial party.
She looks at him contemptuously and we the audience are to receive that plot device (i.e., the cross-dressing) as cultural shorthand indicating that he would make a terrible ruler and suitor because, obviously, he's less of a man. (And only real men are rulers? LOL) So in one fell swoop, it's pushing a feminist agenda, CHALLENGING the notion that women are not suited to the role of leadership, but also RELYING on stereotypes against effeminate men as not truly capable of leadership. This cultural shorthand in the minds in the audience furthers the story, but nevertheless betrays that it's not all as progressive as it's all made out to be. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 01:29 PM)
. . I would be far more enraged and think even worse thoughts than Edward.
Rage is a waste of energy and poisons the angry. After any serious setback, a period of grieving and self-examination is appropriate, before moving on with one's life. This is the prudent course for any person. As far as we know, Edward took his loss like a man and turned his experience into art. According to his note, he felt gratitude toward his ex-spouse for her part in transforming him into a decent author. There's no evidence he harbored any ill-will towards her, apart from a dinner no-show which can be easily explained if one examines the novel's events.
All this barking up the Tree of Revenge is just pursuing red herrings. -
DHfilmfan — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 06:01 PM)
We're talking past each other, but saying the same thing.
Again, I don't see it as a 'revenge' tale, though it could be read that way. If I zoom out all the way, I see it as mostly a postmodern story-in-a-story formal exercise, the subject of which is that tired old yarn of a disintegrated marriage. Who would finance this as a film? Thus, the revenge angle.
That bit about me saying I'd be far more enragedactually, I probably wouldn't be. This was just more to illustrate that I have emotional depth (and that I'm not some uncritical "women's rights" advocatein fact, it's precisely these people and their tendencies that I'm drawing attention to). Edward's novel did not have to be revenge; the narrative contents need not have been a metaphor (this is where we get POST-Modern). The manuscript itself, echoed in the fact that the novel Tony and Susan draws attention to itself (is self-conscious) as fiction,
was
the message. Whatever that says about Edward's character, whether he is vengeful or spiteful or manly or magnanimous, is really beside the point. -
tigerfish50 — 9 years ago(January 15, 2017 09:57 AM)
. . that tired old yarn of a disintegrated marriage. Who would finance this as a film?
In the right hands, a disintegrating marriage is far from a tired old yarn - see Bergman - tired old yarns are gangster movies, space operas and superhero fairy tales. Since Ford apparently financed the film, it would be him - and since he's already made a film about a man grieving for his dead lover, he clearly isn't interested in making conventional box office fodder. In actuality, NA is an allegory about how it feels to come out the other side of a disintegrated marriage and achieve peace of mind - nothing more.